


Stories Within a Story III

by Blue_Sunshine



Series: The Desert Storm [21]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Babies, Distance, Family, Food, Gen, Separation, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:40:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27720152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_Sunshine/pseuds/Blue_Sunshine
Summary: Short prompt-based one-offs for the holiday, round 3.
Series: The Desert Storm [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1311746
Comments: 110
Kudos: 778





	1. Chapter 1

Her sister looks pale.

Sunlight leaks through the sheer drapes of the small bedroom, making the fine lace on the bassinet beneath glow, and catching every highlight in Satine’s pale hair.

Bo-Katan lingers in the doorway, uncertain of breaking the quiet peace in the room. For the first time in her life, she feels out of place in her armor, the weapons strapped to her person seeming heavy and unwieldy and unwelcome. Too hard, too rough.

Satine shifts in her sleep, turning her head, drawing one hand up towards her cheek on the pillow, the edge of the delicate tattoo low on her wrist peeking out from the loose sleeve of her simple bedgown. Her sharp brow – a match for Bo-Katan’s own – furrows faintly in discomfort, then smooths over.

Twenty hours of labor, and her sister had been sleeping for most of the four days after, waking muzzily a few hours at a time to feed and hold her newborn before dozing off again. Lin Mereel’s midwife said that was to be expected.

 _Twenty hours of labor,_ even with modern medicine – or, well, as much modern medicine as they could fit in a homestead bedroom. Bo-Katan has been in battles that didn’t last as long. No wonder her sister is exhausted and uncomfortable.

They were holed up now on the Mereel’s homestead, under the quiet and dedicated protection of House Mereel and Clan Betoya, under the care of those Satine and Fett trusted most.

Satine would have only a few weeks at most, to recover and to return to the public eye.

And then Bo-Katan….

She drags her eyes away from her sister, soft and vulnerable though she looked, and towards the basinet.

She can’t make herself step forward.

Satine would have a few short weeks with her child, and then Bo-Katan would have to take over. She had promised. She had promised Satine that she could do this, that she _would_ do this. That she would make things right for having left Satine before. That she was going to _be there_ for her this time. In whatever way Satine needed. For as long as Satine needed.

A small grunt from the basinet makes her stomach clench and her lungs compress into the bottom of her throat.

A pitiful, uncertain whimper follows.

Bo-Katan glances at her sister, who is quite possibly drooling a little, and grits her teeth.

She sheds her blasters first, then the _beskar_ vibroknife her _buir_ gave her from her boot, then the black blade strapped to her back, leaving them all outside the door, in the hall. She still rocks uncertainly in the doorway before she manages to actually cross the threshold and cross to the window, to the bassinet.

Baby blue eyes meets hers, somber and soulful. Tiny, tiny fingers curl and stretch, clasping at the folds of the loose garment the baby was in. Their tiny face scrunches abruptly, and the infant lets out another whine, limbs shaking.

Bo-Katan reaches in and lays her fingertips gently against the infant’s chest, uncertain.

The baby looks at her again, suddenly calm. Tiny, brittle nails meet the skin on the back of her hand and _scratch_. Bo-Katan snorts, and whatever distress the infant felt is momentarily waylaid by curiosity. Bo-Katan presses her pinky against a tiny palm, and taps a small chin with the pad of her forefinger.

She won’t admit how cute that little face is.

Not when the newborn looks entirely too much like their father, whom Bo-Katan owes a _beating_.

“I hope your hair stays that color,” Bo-Katan murmurs, clearing her throat a little, because…. Because you have to talk soft to babies. At the moment, the infant’s hair was exceedingly fine to non-existent, but what little there was is also nearly white, hopefully promising to turn a proper Kryze silver-blonde, like Satine’s, like Adonai’s.

Then next whine is louder, and Bo-Katan flinches. She glances at her sister, who hasn’t stirred, and then leans over the basinet.

“ _k’uur, k’uur, ik’aad_ ,” Bo-Katan shushes them, giving those cloudy blue eyes a stern look. “Don’t wake your _buir_.”

Bo-Katan’s throat closes up, and her _vod’ad_ whimpers and starts crying.

 _Hush, hush, little one_. It’s what her – it’s what Duke Kryze used to say, when Bo-Katan and her sister were little. She can remember being scooped up into his arms while throwing a tantrum, and getting trapped against his chest while he crooned in her ear until she finally gave up and started bawling properly instead of kicking and screaming and throwing things.

The baby cries louder.

Bo-Katan picks her _vod’ad_ up, gentle with a hand under their head, and just sort of – holds them out over the basinet. She hasn’t held a baby since she was four years old and Satine was one herself, and she’d been too young at the time to hold one by herself. Adonai would always pull Bo-Katan up on his lap, putting his arms under hers so she could hold her little sister.

She’s scared to try and hold them against her armor, worried she’ll bruise that soft, fragile skin on accident. Her _vod’ad_ is so _small_.

“Bo-Katan?”

Bo-Katan turns alarmed eyes on her sister, who is sat up an half out of the bed already, puzzled and worried and barely awake. Satine blinks, and looks at Bo-Katan, and the arms length she’s holding the baby at.

She snorts, moving to come up beside her sister, wincing only a little as she walks. “Here.”

Bo-Katan expects her to take the baby, but she doesn’t. She guides Bo-Katan’s hands until her _vod’ad_ is cradled in the crook of her arm, held against her armor-plated chest.

The crying tapers down into confused whimpers. Little nails scratch against her _beskar_.

Bo-Katan swallows and looks back up at Satine, who is watching her child with soft, sad eyes and an expression of irrevocable adoration.

“You should take them.” Bo-Katan tries to hand her the infant, but Satine has a grip on her elbow and it is surprisingly strong, holding her arm in place. “You’re better at –“ Bo-Katan shrugs, rather gesturing to all of it.

Satine gives her a disapproving, slightly disdainful look. “No, I’m not, I’ve just spent fifteen minutes with Lady Mereel being taught how to hold and burp and change an infant and that’s about all the more training in motherhood I have than you.”

Bo-Katan flinches. “It’s not that simple-“

“It is if you make it so,” Satine retorts sharply, pinning her with a fierce, piercing look. “You promised me, Bo-Katan. I can’t – I _can’t_ have this, even if I want it so badly I can’t breathe. So you have to be there for Korkie. For me. You _promised_ , which means you _do it_ , Bo-Katan, and you do whatever it takes.”

Bo-Katan grinds her teeth and looks away, shame spilling through her.

The baby grunts again, whimpers faded into forceful sniffles, little limbs wriggling.

“Probably hungry.” Bo-Katan mutters.

Satine sighs through her nose and reaches over, gently lifting her child from her sister’s arms and turning back towards the bed.

“Korkie?” Bo-Katan frowns, nose crinkling, when Satine has settled herself again, her _ad_ swaddled against her breast. “Little Glory?” _kote orikih_ , She guesses. A strong name, if simpler in meaning than she would expect from her sister.

“From _kote uur ka’ra_.” Satine corrects. “Glories in the silence of stars.”

Bo-Katan lets out a grumble. _Child of a jetii, for sure_.

It shouldn’t surprise her, really.

She watches Satine stroke Korkie’s tiny, rosy cheek, brush a finger up and down one fragile arm. Bo-Katan has watched her sister carry herself through the last several months with resolve and ferocious focus, without hesitation, though Bo-Katan has seen the heartbreak in her eyes, when her sister gets a rare moment to reflect, to feel, to think and wonder and _want_.

She doesn’t know where Satine gets the _strength_ , to do what she does.

Bo-Katan is abruptly grateful that she herself has never been in love as her sister is in love. Love is a war she has never won. Not with Duke Kryze, not with Satine, not with herself.

Bo-Katan hates Obi-Wan, a little, for how much her sister loves him. She is going to break his too-pretty face, the next time she sees him. Even if he is her brother-in-law in all but title.

“Quit plotting murder and come sit with me,” Satine says, lifting her gaze briefly.

Bo-Katan scowls. “I wasn’t-“ she bites her tongue. She wasn’t plotting _murder_.

Just grievous bodily harm.

He was a _jetii_. He could take it.

Bo-Katan moves to lean against the edge of the bed, and Satine grabs her by her chest-plate and hauls her forward, forcing her up until Bo-Katan is squished against the headboard with her, Satine’s shoulder under her armpit, her elbow digging in to Bo-Katan’s gut.

They used to sit like this as girls, when Satine was learning to read and insisted on sitting on Bo-Katan and forcing the older girl to help her with the difficult words. Except it was never really forced.

Bo-Katan sucks in a breath, biting the inside of her lip. She hates this, how every thought touches a memory, and every memory hurts. She wants to claw her way out, to push Satine away and shove off the bed and leave, to go somewhere where she can beat something until her heart has a reason to be pounding and her thoughts are a numb buzz, adrenaline and exertion providing a steady heat against the cold cringing press inside her chest.

“I miss you,” she blurts out insead.

She did, she does – she misses the waif-like little blonde that used to follow her around and then stick her nose up and dash off the second Bo-Katan called her on it. She misses the little girl who was such a _lady_ but still was the worst little kitchen thief, bounding into Bo-Katan’s room and getting crumbs all over her bead, sharing so her big sister would protect her if the baker got mad. She misses the kid she taught how to throw a punch, who looked her in the eye at all of seven years old and told her “I don’t want to die.” She misses the ten year old who wouldn’t stop arguing with her at every turn, but still went to her when she was sad, or upset, or afraid, who had seen even then that the two of them were going to walk ever diverging paths, and made a promise with her, that no matter what happened, the two of them were going to bring peace to Mandalore. Even if they had to fight on opposite sides of the war.

She misses all the versions of her sister she never got to know, in the years they were apart.

Satine looks at her, silver-blue eyes clear and keen, as if they can cut through every bit of armor Bo-Katan has and see right through her. “We’re here now,” Satine says. “You and I.”

Bo-Katan drops her gaze, and it lands on her _vod’ad_ , baby blue eyes staring at her, calm and dewy. “And Korkie,” Bo-Katan says.

Satine’s lips twitch. “And Korkie,” She agrees.

~*~

 _Adonai Kryze_ , Jango thinks, _is laughing his shebs off in the afterlife_.

 _Vod, I am outnumbered here_ , he pleads with the memory of the man.

Saine sits primly in the chair opposite him, looking very elegant and very tired. Bo-Katan is leaning I the doorway, tapping her vibroblade off her palm and pretending she isn’t hovering aggressively, and Jango has about eight pounds of fragile innocence cradled in his hands, staring up at him with soft baby blue eyes that are utterly unafraid. Tiny, rosy hands scrunch and wobble, tugging on the soft lilac silk the baby is swaddled in.

“Our little _Ad’alor_ isn’t going to break if you _breathe_ , Jango,” Lin Mereel sweeps into the room, “ food is going on the table. Move.”

Satine is the only one Lin treats with deference, helping her stand and then turning around to kick the _Mand’alor_ in the shin.

Jango glares at his clan-cousin, who is utterly unphased and has more people to round up, and Bo-Katan lurches forward to take the baby. Jango pulls Korkie closer and shakes his head. He’s fine. The little one is fine. Bo-Katan, thwarted, turns on heel and marches out after her sister.

Jango readjusts Korkie into the crook of his arm, looks down at that tiny face, with Satine’s sharp brow and Obi-Wan’s soft face and wide eyes, and sighs regrettably.

Fish, the damnable droid, whirrs ominously when it spots Jango in the hallway, but surrenders unconditionally when he turns and it registers the infant.

 _Yeah_ , Jango thinks, _that’s gonna be a thing_. He pats the baby on the bottom and looks down at Korkie very seriously. “You,” he informs the child. “ Are _dangerous_.”

Korkie yawns, the effort taking up the entirety of the infants body in the motion.

Jango Fett has never before felt so calm and at the same time so awake as he does in this moment.

He eventually makes it into the dining room where Lin’s husband Elav is trying to set food down while their son Sio is eagerly if not expertly trying to fill everyone’s cups from a pitcher and Lin is trying to crawl under the table to catch her daughter.

The girl is giggling her head off, escaping her _buir_ , until Sha’me Betoya swoops down behind her and scoops her up. Ru’u _shrieks_ in surprise, and every adult flinches at the piercing sound.

Korkie startles, little hands spasming, feet kicking. Janog moves to where Elav, unbothered by the chaos and the fuss, directs him to sit, between Satine and Bo-Katan. He kicks the back of her daughters chair, for managing to aggressively take up twice as much space at the table as she needs to. He shifts his own seat with a foot and drops down, Satine looking over the moment her child is in her line of sight.

Korkie kicks.

And kicks.

And doesn’t stop kicking through the entire meal.

“Restless,” Lin remarks, at one point.

Bo-Katan snorts. “Wonder where _that_ comes from,” she mutters sarcastically.

Satine looks not at all slighted, on her own behalf nor on her lovers, just reaching over and running her fingers over the baby’s brow. Korkie stops kicking.

Jango follows Satine out on the front porch once dinner breaks up, Korkie fast asleep, gumming on one corner of the lilac blanket.

“Here,” Jango turns to her, offering up the infant, though he’s refused both Bo-Katan and Sha’me’s efforts to take their turns.

Satine looks at the child unreadably.

Jango feels his jaw clench ,and forces it to relax. Bo-Katan had mentioned that.

“You’ll regret it,” Jango says. “Every chance you didn’t take. You may go months at a time without seeing our little _Ad’alor_ , Satine. They grow fast at this age. You won’t get those chances back.”

Satine looks up at him with a flash of anger quickly spent, wrapping her arms around herself tightly as she looks away. “Every time I…. I never want to let go. And I have to. And it _hurts_.”

Jango shifts on his feet, expression pulling, and steps closer to her. She eyes him warily.

“Korkie is _yours_ , Satine Kryze. No matter what. You can’t be Korkie’s _buir_ right now, and I understand. You’re young, and you’ve got more burden and responsibility on your shoulders than any sane man would give you, and it isn’t safe right now, to be vulnerable,” Jango says quietly. “But if you don’t hold on to what you’ve got when you can, then what is the point? Someday is a promise the universe rarely keeps. If it hurts, it hurts. Let it. Don’t you think it’s worth it?”

It’s the second time he’s made her cry, but last time he’ done it because he was pissed off and scared and she screamed at him and stalked off – this time she scoops her child up out of his arms and then falls against his shoulder. This time she’s quiet, tears streaming down until she can catch her breath enough to pull away and drink in the sight of her baby, the warmth cradled against her, the all too fragile youth and innocence.

She sniffles.

Jango sighs and scrubs a hand over his hair before crossing his arms, staring at her profile.

It’s the grand joke of the galaxy that he would tear worlds apart for his messy little collection of borrowed family, and what he _needs_ to do for them is put worlds back together.

Satine wipes at her face and turns to look at him, catching him staring.

She smiles, nodding to him, gratitude and care illuminating the expression.

Jango grimaces a smile back, unsure what he should _do_ with being faced with something other than aloof respect and hard-won trust from the young woman, and nods in turn, awkwardly dismissing himself.

Bo-Katan is sitting on the stairs, and she gives him a hopeful, wide-eyed look. He jerks his thumb over his shoulder, and relief makes her shoulders sag before she pulls herself up and lopes down the steps.

The quick hug catches him off guard, as it always does, delivered with the same swift striking she might employ to stab someone on the sly, there and gone again.

“Thanks _buir_.”

And she’s gone.

Jango tips his head back and closes his eyes, sighing from the bottom of his chest.

Yeah, Adonai had to be laughing.


	2. Chapter 2

“Don’t touch the rice!” Mavi Var’de hisses, _trying_ to knead dough. It was kinda crumbly. She’s not sure she got the measurements right.

“But I need the burner!” Serra Keto protests, voice just as low and pressed. “The auto-kettle is broken.”

“Use the other side!” Mavi pushes her over, the kitchen so small that they weren’t ever really more than an arms length apart.

“There’s no room!”

“Move the sauce.”

“You said _not_ to touch the sauce.”

“I’d rather you move the sauce than touch the rice!”

“Hush!” Serra snaps, and the both of them freeze, listening. They’d snuck into Master Drallig’s quarters to cook him breakfast, because their rooms in the Padawan Dorms didn’t have a kitchen, but the idea was to _surprise_ him with it.

Mavi is still learning how to expand upon her ‘good instincts’ and really recognize the Force, but she thinks she can sense that Master Drallig is both present in his quarters and asleep. Or at least in a passive mood. She’s good at judging when she’s not alone, and at picking up a mood even from those hardest to read for others, and she was _excellent_ at threat awareness and puzzles, but to her it was all just ‘a feeling’. She didn’t get the nuance that Serra could.

“Is he still asleep?” Mavi whispers in the dark-haired girls ear.

“I think so.” Serra whispers back, quietly moving the sauce-pot and replacing it with a kettle.

Serra… Mavi adored her best friend, she really did, but Serra was worse than a bad cook. She was a _menace_. Mavi wasn’t exactly a chef herself, but she could manage steam buns, fruit sauce, and breakfast rice just fine.

Well, mostly.

She couldn’t brew a proper cup of tea to save her life, though.

Serra, on the other hand, was an ace at tea ceremonies.

They share a look and quietly keep working, stomachs growling as they work, the rich fragrance of red sapir and cinnabark drifting through the air, mingling with the fruit sauce which was more a syrup, really, and the cooking rice.

Mavi eyes the buns nervously. She really wants to get this right.

She doesn’t know what she’d been thinking, really, shipping halfway across the galaxy to train as a jedi.

She doesn’t regret it, exactly, but in hindsight… it had been brazen to the point of foolishness. She may be considered an adult on Mandalore, but at fourteen and fifteen, to the rest of the galaxy, she was just a kid with probably too much training in weaponry and definitely too much attitude.

It was just… after Sundari…. She couldn’t stand the thought of saying goodbye to Serra. They’d been through fire together – literally. Mavi had never met anyone so fearless and so _kind_. Someone who made her feel alight and alive.

Crossing the galaxy or saying goodbye… well, crossing the galaxy had seemed easier.

Still, she had expected to get in _some_ kind of trouble. But the _jetiise_ were… weird. The knight who’d transported them had sent them off with an amused smile and a pat on the shoulder. The one who’d issued her a room hadn’t even seemed to register, at the time, that Mavi _wasn’t_ actually a displaced padawan, _beskar’gam_ notwithstanding. Serra had dragged her to the healers for a check-up and she’d ended up with a dozen vaccinations but no interrogation.

And Master Drallig….

He’d been very polite, the first time they met, and Serra had introduced her as ‘her Mandalorian friend’.

It had taken him two weeks to realize that Mavi wasn’t actually just _visiting_. That she wasn’t observing Serra’s classes so much as attending, and that his very capable but very young padawan was attempting to teach a girl older than her how to be a jedi with the full intent of doing so for as long as everyone would let her get away with it.

“Serra,” he’d placed a hand directly on top of the girls head, making her stand still and quiet for a moment. “ you cannot teach your friend to be a Jedi. You are a Padawan Learner, and that is an endeavor beyond your responsibility.”

“But-“

“Leave it to me, please,” he’d chided, and that… had been that.

He’d looked her over after that, his gaze piercingly critical. “Mavi Var’de, is it?”

“Yes sir.” She’d snapped to attention.

“Hm.”

She’d bristled at that, and he’d shaken his head.

“Let’s see what we’re working with, shall we?” he’d invited her to the training salles, and proceeded to wipe the floor with her. He finally called a halt when she was too exhausted to keep up and humiliated beyond measure, and then, after getting her a towel and a canister of water, spent two hours pulling apart not her Mandalorian martial technique, but her emotional control and her mental focus and what meager grasp of the Force she did have.

“So you’re saying I’m hopeless. That I can’t be a jedi.” Mavi had growled out, glad Serra had been sent off to a lecture so she didn’t see.

“I am _saying_ ,” he had chided, “ that there is much we have to work with, you and I. That is, if you’re willing to accept me as your Master, and become my Padawan Learner. You do have a choice I the matter, Serra’s insistence aside.”

“…. I was… kind of registered as your padawan last week?” Mavi hadn’t been kicked out of the Temple, so Serra had filed paperwork. Who approved it, Mavi has no idea, but it went through.

He’d _sighed_. “Very well then, padawan.”

She hasn’t…. exactly been a good padawan. Not compared to other padawans her age. Not with her temper, or her aggression, or her attitude, or her pitiful progress in meditation and anything involving the Force other than pure theory.

She can tell her peers and her teachers find her difficult to deal with, and she knows that comes back on Master Drallig. She’s not… good with these things, she supposes.

But she wants to do something right for him, even if its just making breakfast, even if it’s just treating him with proper respect for a padawan to her master. She wants to show she’s grateful, even if she’s frustrated and snappish more often than not.

~*~

Cin sits on his bed, idly meditating while he waits for an appropriate moment to join his two well-meaning but rather _boisterous_ padawans out in the other room. He can be patient, if only to spare them from being disappointed in their own efforts for things not going according to plan.

So long as nothing is on fire, at least.

He’s a strict taskmaster and he always has been, but his first padawan had given him a bit of advice the day after their knighting – “Try showing a _little_ indulgence with the next one, eh?”

Cin, having been quite proud of the result of his training methods, had been a bit stiffly affronted. “You turned out quite well, did you not?”

His former padawan had then admitted that there had been several occasions throughout their training where they truly contemplated leaving the Order, that they had struggled with envy of the more familial relationships between other master-padawan pairs and a great deal of self-doubt.

Cin had been… shocked, and quite ashamed, even if his former padawan assured him that he did not blame him, that his behavior had not been abusive nor neglectful, simply… strict, respectfully courteous and appropriately attentive, but never quite friendly.

Cin had overcompensated by perhaps spoiling his first grandpadawan, and had received another wry bit of advice from the then knight and master; “Not quite _that_ much indulgence.”

He has been very glad that the distance his padawan felt he suffered as a youth was bridged over time, that the young man had both respected him and cared for him enough to allow him to amend their relationship into one more cordial.

He’d taken care not to repeat his mistakes. He’ll never be as affable a master as some, but he thinks time and greater experience has worn away the hardest of his edges. Teaching has made him soft.

Well soft-er.

“Is it ready?”

“Not yet!”

“Is it ready _now_?

“No! _Shush_!”

“I’m _starving_.”

“This was your idea!”

“I didn’t think cooking would take so long.”

“Because you can’t cook!”

“Hey!”

“ _Shush_!”

Cin shakes his head and smiles. Nothing but trouble, those two, but Force if they don’t make him feel younger.

When they aren’t making him feel very, very old.

“It’s ready!”

“Thank the Force!”

A split second later there is a tentative, rapid knock on his bedroom door. “Master?”

Cin pushes himself to his feet, ignoring the twinge of a body that never fully recovered and never fully will. He’s already dressed, save for his boots, and he’s at the door in two strides. It swicks open.

“Padawan,” he smiles. Serra looks up at him, cool green gaze flicker quick in assessment. She pouts.

“We didn’t have you fooled for a minute, did we?” she says, sighing.

Cin lays a hand on her shoulder and squeezes. “Serra,” he says kindly, tone dry, “ you dropped the auto-kettle on the floor.”

“I _told_ you!” Mavi groans, smacking her palm on her brow. “We can’t even do surprise breakfast right!”

Cin smirks. “You did a decent job of ‘surprise padawan’.”

Mavi gives him a half-narrowed look, uncertain if she’s being subtly scolded or not. Serra snorts and sloppily covers her grin with one hand. She has absolutely no shame in that regard.

“I appreciate the effort,” Cin assures the both of them, earning identical pleased looks. “ let’s eat, shall we? I have it under good authority that Serra is _starving_.”

The dark-haired girl flushes red, and Mavi relaxes.


	3. DISTANCE

Essja has been staring at the datapad in front of him for at least five minutes, and he still has no idea what it says. The edges of the data are all fuzzy and vague, and his thoughts keep blurring into the middle distance.

Groaning, he pushes the datapad away, nearly toppling a stack of them off the edge of his desk as he does so, and lowers his head onto his arms. If he just closes his eyes for a few minutes, surely he’ll be able to focus….

A buzzing alert jerks him awake, and his heart races in mild panic – he has no idea how long he slept for-

The buzzing alert is his comm. Quickly brushing his hair back and tugging on his tunic to make sure his appearance is neat, he answers it. “Healer Chias available.”

“ _Essja, this is your private comm_ ,” his former master informs him succinctly.

He blinks, and then feels a light blush color his face. That was… an oversight.

“ _Are you on duty_?” Ni Hiella inquires, as Essja adjusts the call to the holo-emitter so he can see her and she can see him.

“Light duty, my rounds ended….” He glances at the clock and lets out a breath of relief. He hadn’t been napping _that_ long, then. “… about an hour ago. Just the paperwork to deal with now.”

“ _There is_ always _paperwork to deal with_ ,” the zeltron replies wryly. “ _you look tired_.”

Essja smiles ruefully and rubs at his eyes. “Double shift again,” he remarks. After the _Temple’s Bane_ pandemic, and then the bombing… follow up care and ongoing after-effects were keeping the Healers more than busy, to say nothing of trying to recuperate and provide adequate care with a much more stringent budget. Their limited supplies meant they were relying more on Force Healing as well, which was more intensive than applying more conventional treatment and took a toll on the practitioners. Even with the absorption of the MediCorps and some very generous but discreet donations from Alderaan, it all was still piling up and wearing the healers and medics down. “How’s Mandalore?” he changes the subject. His former master has her own worries, and there is nothing to be done, at the moment, for their situation.

“ _Refreshing_ ,” Ni Hiella smirks, running her fingers through her dark hair, which was hanging loose for once. “ _Everyone is so stubborn and full of bluster and it is a_ delight _to watch them be utterly cowed by my adorable little padawan_.”

Essja smiles, though there is a minor pang in his chest. He has yet to meet his sister-padawan, but he looks forward to the day. By all accounts she is a sweet, gentle soul with a penchant for asking forgiveness rather than permission and appeared absolutely immune to intimidation. “I imagine it is. The situation is improving, then? You're doing well?”

“ _Resources are scarce, the infrastructure is in shambles and there is absolutely no funding_ ,” Ni Hiella smiles. “ _I’m having the time of my life_.”

Essja chuckles, shaking his head. His master was ever happiest when she was in the thick of it, when the odds were slim and the work demanding and the very best of herself came to the fore.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Essja says. He’s missed his master, missed her focus and her strength and her teasing, but he is glad she is where she needs to be, doing what she loves to do.

They are both where they need to be.

“Essja,” Ni Hiella calls his name, and he looks up, realizing his gaze has slid away.

“Hm?”

_“Go take a nap, you silly child.”_

“I have-“

 _“To take care of yourself_ ,” she chides. “ _You know as well as I do that healers are the worst sort of patients. You can’t help anyone if you’re too worn down to think straight. Trust me, your paperwork will be there when you’re rested. Your paperwork is_ always _going to be there,_ waiting _.”_

Essja snorts, rubbing at the side of temple. “That’s not comforting.”

 _“But it’s true.”_ She says cheerily.

“I’m not a padawan anymore, you know,” Essja remarks. “You don’t have to fret over me.”

 _“I spent twelve years fretting over you and I will spend the rest of my life doing so, you ungrateful little hobgoblin,”_ Ni Hiella retorts. _“It’s a master’s prerogative.”_

“You have a new padawan to fret over,” Essja reminds her, teasing and a bit embarassed.

 _“Oh, believe me, Essja Chias, I am more than capable of fretting over you both,”_ She rolls her eyes and flicks her hair aside. _“Take a padawan, you’ll see.”_

“I…. I’ve been considering it. We need more healers,” he says.

She blinks, and gives him much more serious attention. _“Oh?”_

“I’m just not sure how…. how you go about choosing one? Why did you choose me?” Essja inquires.

 _“Because I looked at this tiny little pantoran with these gentle golden eyes and that serious little displeased frown and saw a boy with more heart and determination than he knew what to do with,”_ she tells him, tone fond and a bit wistful, _“I saw a boy who was going to be something remarkable, and I realized that I wanted to be there for it. All younglings have potential – it’s when you feel that you know how to help them realize it that you find a padawan.”_

Essja smiles faintly. He likes the idea of taking a student. Likes the idea of passing on what has been passed on to him. “I’ll keep that in mind, thank you.”

 _“Keep me informed,”_ Ni Hiella warns him. _“Acquiring a grandpadawan is a very significant achievement. I need to be able to brag to Vokara that my student has become a master, and that my lineage has adopted another adorable little addition. Make sure they’re unreasonably cute.”_

Esja snorts. “Of course,” he agrees easily _._ “But turnabout is fair – I still haven’t even seen a _holopic_ of my sister-padawan.”

 _“I’ll do you one better, Essja Chias. I’ll arrange for her to call you for a proper introduction –_ after _you’ve_ rested _.”_

“ _Master_!” he complains.

~*~

Quinlan lopes through the Hall of Many Faces of the Holy Temple of Jedha, a bantha-wool poncho thrown over his sleeveless tunics because Jedha, in spite of being a desert, tended to fall on the cold side, and ducks out into courtyard on the other side before slipping out a simple arch and into an alleyway where deliveries to the temple were usually made.

The Holy City was an interesting place, with the catacombs beneath whispering of shadows and secrets and revelations, with the bright, glittering music of so much kyber sparkling from every corner. The whole temple sang with it, many columns and archways and monoliths within carved of kyber, the ground beneath riddled with it, including the great repository deep in the catacombs. Many of the pilgrims carried kyber talismans, and the Guardians of the Whills generally had pieces of it in their clothing or adorning their weapons.

It should seem overwhelming, but for all that Jedha was potent, there was a restfulness here, a quiet sense of promise and reflection that soothed the restlessness in his soul.

A thousand upon a thousand generations of amity and tradition would do that. This was a place of seeking, and of being found, a place where a thousand different religions coalesced and made harmony.

Its surface was the same as any other – bustling and boisterous, travelled by good folk and bad – but everything beneath was settled, and settled deep. It would not be touched nor tainted by ordinary miasma.

Quinlan lopes through the district around the temple and down to the market district. Guardians mingle among the streets, standing out in their sharp black robes with red and white accents. Weaving was a big deal on Jedha, so it paid to pay attention to textiles. His wool poncho had come with an entire history of traditions and meanings, though Quinlan could have skipped the explanation – he could feel the dedication and deliberation in every thread. The cloth that the Guardians wore was steeped with meaning, so the locals gave them the distinction of not wearing anything too similar.

It made them easy to pick out in the crowd.

Without fail, every single on of them will either glance or nod in his direction, no matter how tightly he shields or carefully he hides or how many illusions he weaves. Half of them aren’t even Force-Sensitive, but there was something special about those who dedicated themselves to the way of the Whills.

Quinlan had been waiting for pick-up long enough now that he’d stopped being impatient and started accepting that he was going to have to wait for as long as he was going to wait.

It gave him time to…. settle. Which he supposed was the point.

But it didn’t stop him longing to go _home_.

He comes to the markets when the introspection that seeped from the temples very foundations was too much to bear, though he rarely buys anything. He plays dice games outside one of the cafes sometimes, where there were always some group of kids playing dice. Mostly he wanders the stalls, rooting out stories and secrets, playing impression games with himself, like the follow-the-trail exercises the crechemasters used to set up for him as a youngling.

He likes how many artists and craftsmen there are on Jedha, how many handmade things. They’re always more interesting than factory products.

He hesitates outside a shop for babies things, glancing in the window.

Omi wasn’t really a baby anymore, was she? Quinlan hadn’t just missed her birth, he’d missed her entire first year of life. Master Tholme has a kid and Quinlan has yet to meet her.

How can he miss someone he’s never met?

He misses Tholme, and Aayla, and Obi-Wan, and Shmi, and Siri and all his friends. But with Omi…. With Omi he realizes just _how much_ he’s missed.

Quinlan sighs. He’s a jedi, and he had been needed. He knows that will always have to come first.

Still…

He slips inside the shop. Most of it is daily supplies, and cribs, and blankets, but there is an entire wall full of small toys too – hanging toys and teething toys and…

Butterlfies. There’s a small mobile of butterflies that catches his eye, a dozen pair of colorful glass wings catching the light, more decorative than anything.

He still has the picture Aayla gave him so long go, of yellow butterflies over dark paper. There’s a small chest in Tholme’s room of the keepsakes Quinlan left behind, and her drawings are in there with the handful of his favorite little plush monsters she’d made and the clay afke pot Tholme had gifted him with when he was fourteen.

He buys the butterflies.

It’s not enough to make up for what he’s put her through, not enough to make up for being gone, but he hopes she’ll like it, that she’ll keep it and know he was thinking of her, even if he wasn’t with her.

He thinks of all of them, constantly.

He wonders if Siri is still angry at him, if Tholme is holding up okay, if Obi-Wan’s been knighted yet, if Trip has any new leads on the possible rise of the Sith. He wonders how much things have changed in his absence.

He wonders how much _he_ has changed.

Quinlan steps out of the shop and takes a deep breath, the cold breeze stirring around his face.

 _Patience_ , he tells himself. _I’ll see them soon enough_.


End file.
